Acknowledgements
Foreword, by Susan Doll
Persons Discussed in Flickering Empire
Preface: Hollywood Before Hollywood
Part 1. Thomas Edison, Invention and the Dawn of a New Chicago
1. Edison's Kinetoscope and Pre-Motion-Picture Entertainment
2. The Columbian Exposition
3. The Dawn of Exhibition
Part 2. Chicago Rising
4. Colonel William Selig
5. George Spoor, George Kleine, and the Rise of the Nickelodeon
6. Gilbert "Broncho Billy" Anderson
7. The Edison Trust
Part 3. The Golden Age of Chicago Film Production
8. The Golden Age of Essanay
9. The Golden Age of Selig Polyscope
10. Essanay Signs Charlie Chaplin
11. Chaplin in Chicago: His New Job
Part 4. It All Came Crashing Down
12. The Decline of the Chicago Studios
13. Major M. L. C. Funkhouser and the Chicago Censorship Code
Epilogue
Post-Script: Oscar and Orson
Appendix A: Selig Polyscope's Pointers on Picture Acting
Appendix B: A Complete List of the Extant Chicago-Shot Films Named in This Book and Where to See Them
Appendix C: Some Censored Scenes of Chicago Films Noted in Local Newspapers
Endnotes
Index
